Smart Food crops – millets and legumes – are highly nutritious. Millets are inherently rich in nutrients such as iron, calcium, and zinc. They are also high in fiber and have low glycemic indexes. Fermented millet products are beneficial in maintaining gut health due to their probiotic nature. Legumes are affordable protein sources that contribute towards building and repairing muscles and tissues. Combined together, millets and legumes form a potent dietary option that may reduce risks of diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The climate resilience of these crops means that they are a good risk-management strategy for farmers. Legumes have an important role to play in soil nutrition and, when rotated with other crops, even increase the water-use efficiency of the entire crop rotation. Their multiple uses and untapped demand means that they have a lot more potential. Plus, unlike other crops they have not yet reached a yield plateau and have great potential for productivity increases.

About Smart Food

Some of the biggest global issues today are poor diets, environmental damage and poverty.

Smart Food – food that is good for you, the planet and the farmer – addresses all these issues in unison.

We need to bring in more diversity in our diets in order to tackle malnutrition, lifestyle diseases (e.g. diabetes) and environmental issues (e.g. climate change and water scarcity) along with poverty.

The Smart Food initiative will lead a campaign to drive demand for these underutilized foods and to develop farmer-integrated value chains for these crops. This will ensure that farmers and rural communities in Africa and India benefit from the development of diverse, healthful foods.